Roderick Hudson

ilaration, tempered, however, by a certain amount of righteous wrath. He had had a domestic struggle, bu

se her. She does n't trust me; she never has and she never will. I don't know what I have done to set her against me, but ever since I can remember I have been looked at with tears. The trouble is," he went on, giving a twist to his moustache, "I 've been too absurdly docile. I 've been sprawling all my days by the maternal fireside, and my dear mother ha

your virtues, and there are worse fates in the world than being loved too well. I have not had the pleasure of seeing your mother, but I would lay you a wager that that is the trouble. She is passionatel

piece of pudding, and I stayed in-doors to be kissed by the ladies while he made mud-pies in the garden and was never missed, of course. Really, he was worth fifty of me! When he was brought home from Vicksburg with a piece of shell in his skull, my poor mother began to think she had n't loved him enough. I remember, as she hung round my neck sobbing, before his coffin, she told me that I must be to her everything that he would have been. I swore in tears and in

plaintive, and yet the manner seemed to him over-trenchant. "You must lose no time in making

the pleasure of knowing one, so I could n't confute her with an example. She had the advantage of me, because she formerly knew a portrait-painter at Richmond, who did her miniature in black lace mittens (you may see it on the parlor table), who used to drink raw brandy and beat his wife. I promised her that, whatever I might do to my wife, I would never beat my mother, and that as for brandy, raw or diluted, I detested it. She sat silently cryi

he prime cause of so much suffering. I owe your mothe

us youths and desolate doting mothers. I leave it to you, personally, to answer these charges. You see, what she can't forgive-what she 'll not really ever forgive-is your taking me off to Rome. Rome is an evil word, in my mother's vocabulary, to be said in a whisper,

r know of your decis

st, at the thought of all the bad blood he had stirred up in me; it did me good, and it 's all over now. I don't hate him any more; I 'm rather sorry for him. See how you 've improved me! I must have seemed to him wilfully, wickedly stupid, and I 'm sure he only tolerated me on account of his great regard for my mother. This morning I grasped the bull by the horns. I took an armful of law-books that have been gathering the dust in my room for the last year and a half, and presented myself at the office. 'Allow me to put these back in their places,' I said. 'I shall never have

ertainly owe him a respectful farewell, even if he has not understood you. I confess you rather puzzle me. There is anoth

ush. Then, with a conscious smile, "What make

yesterday, she struck me as a very intelli

passed rapidly into a frown. "Oh, sh

el as if I ought to see you into port. I am older than you and know the world better, and it seems well that we should voyage a while together. It 's on my conscience that I oug

of pledges. "I have no preparations to make," he said with a smile, raising his arms and letting them fall, as

towage, in his own organism, in the region indicated by Roderick,

He sat some time, thoughtfully snipping tape with her scissors; he expected criticism and he was preparing a rejoinder. At last he told her of Roderick

have said, if I

f the person in all Northampton who amuses me most!' I would have said in

ve minutes. What woul

lly averse to meddling, you w

ence. Cecilia looked at him askance; graduall

have kept me alive. They have given a silver tip to leaden days. I don't say he is of a more useful metal than other people, but he is of a differ

economy, indulged itself with a certain agreeable laxity on this particular point. She liked her young friend just as he was; she humored him, flattered him, laughed at him, caressed him-did everything but advise him. It was a flirtation without the benefits of a flirtation. She was too old to let him fall in love with her, which might have done him good; and her inclination was to keep him young, so that the nonsense he talked might never transgress a certain line. It was quite conceivable that

she pursued, "that you are li

le inspiration. Then I remembered there were dangers and difficulties, and asked myself whether I had a right to step in between him and his obscurity. My sense of his really having the divine flame answered the question. He is made to do the things that humanity is the happier

you. But I want, first of all, to be happy myself. Y

d Rowland smiling, "for the

to demand that you guarantee us not only the devel

grave again.

tacit compact to preserve it. Perhaps you believe in the necessary turbulence of genius

and I confess I have a strong conviction that the artist is better for leading a quiet life. That is what I shall preach to my prot

as nevertheless managed to make the best of it, and found it easy, on the whole, to vegetate. Transplanted to Rome, I fancy he 'll put forth a denser leafage. I should like vastly to see the change. You must

e when a body begins to expand, there comes in the possibility of bursting; but I nevertheless approve of a certain tens

de Rowland, for the moment, seem to himself culpably eager. "W

which was held with an air of familiarity with its sadder uses. Near her, on the sofa, half sitting, half lounging, in the attitude of a visitor outstaying ceremony, with one long leg flung over the other and a large foot in a clumsy boot swinging to and fro continually, was a lean, sandy-haired gentleman whom Rowland recognized as the original of the portrait of Mr. Barnaby Striker. At the table, near the candles, busy with a substantial piece of needle-work, sat the young girl of whom he had had a moment's quickened glimpse in Roderic

my son has told me. I suppose it is better I

ed to comply, and, turning, grasped

els. He felt the least bit irritated at the curtness of the warning, coming as it did from a young woman whose countenance he had mentally pronounced interesting, and with rega

ir," he answered, "and have the ple

n resources or the chances of things turning out well. Rowland began immediately to like her, and to feel impatient to persuade her that there was no harm in him, and that, twenty to one, her son would make her a well-pleased woman yet. He foresaw that she would be easy to persuade, and that a benevolent conversational tone would probably make her pass, fluttering, from distrust into an oppressive extreme of confidence. But he had an indefinable sense that the person who was testing that strong young eyesight of hers in the dim candle-light was less readily beguiled from her mysterious feminine preconceptions. Miss Garland, according to Cecilia's judgment, as Rowland remembered, had not a countenance to inspire a sculptor; but it seemed to Rowland that her countenance might fairly inspire a man who was far from being a sculptor. She was not pretty, as the eye of habit judges prettiness, but when you made the observation you somehow failed to set it down against her, for you had already passed from measuring contours to tracing meanings. In Mary Garland's face there were many possible ones, and they gave you the more to think about that it was not-lik

," he said at last, addressing himself to Mrs. Hudson,

tation was on the point of adding something more; but Mr. Stri

ime have you been acquainted with our young friend?" He continued to kick the air, but his head was thrown bac

me, I confess. H

the right to say that I knew him. We had a few moments' conversation in my office which supplied the missing links in the evidence. So that now I do venture to say

that the latter colored a little. "Oh, in three years, of course," he said, "we shall know each other better. B

ing her distress by the assistance of irony. Then reassured, little by little, by R

intervened. "Do I fully apprehend your expression?"

st, I hope,"

rland, and myself-as if his merits were rather in the line of the"-and Mr. Striker waved his hand with a series of fantastic flourishes in the air-"of the light ornamental!" Mr. Striker bore his recalcitrant pupil a grudge, but he was evidently trying both to be fair and to respect the susceptibilities of his companions. But he was unversed in the myster

ossible greatness, "that you don't at all thank me for stirring up your son's ambit

ess the truth and the fear of being impolite. "My cousin is no one's enemy," Miss Garland hereupon declared,

o you?" Rowland ventur

r of a minister, the granddaughter of a minister, the sister of a minister." Rowland bowed deferentially, and the young girl went on with her sewing, with nothing, apparently, either of embarrassment or elation at the promulgation of these fac

d it less defiantly. But Rowland saw in Mr. Striker's many-wrinkled light blue eye, shrewd at once and good-natured, that he had no intention of defiance,

to do anything. He must do for himself. I simply offer

g about from recent visions of dangerous leisure. "He 's not very

irect his attention?" Then suddenly, with an impulse of disintereste

models and im

o what kind of mo

que, in the

ose intonation. "Do you hear, madam? Roderick is go

id Mrs. Hudson, twisting hersel

mage of a pagan deity, with considerable dirt sticking to it, an

scription of many," sai

rs. Hudson, borrowing c

d to the antique," Mr. Striker resumed. "After he has be

e living model

four years?" asked Mr

aptitude. After twenty years a

Hudson, finding the prospect, u

model," Mr. Striker pursued. "

cried Mrs. Huds

ns for studying in Rome. It 's a handsome race

tough Yankee," objected Mr. Striker, transposin

which showed that she had already begun to concede much weight to his opi

a moment's hesitation: "Are the Rom

was looking straight at the young girl.

e had evidently expected a more impersonal answer, and she was dissatisfied. For an instant she seemed

histicated tone. He noticed too that the kitchen towel she was hemming was terribly coarse. And yet

Mr. Striker. "You put them i

itude,

sit down and

t go at your clay and try to build

I suppose, on the other, and your pile of clay in the middle, building up, as you say. So you

s his work there is no time lost. Everythin

page unturned, watching the flies buzz, or the frost melt on the window-pane. Our youn

tful smile, "he will prove some day the comp

uch ingenious hopefulness, and found herself disrelishing the singular situation of seeming to side agains

to ask, "my son has great-wha

e, very gre

e her to do likewise. But the young girl's face remained serious, like the eastern sky when the o

er save after proof, and proof

ou bel

elie

vouchsafed no smile. Her fa

udson, "we must hope that

eye half-closed, looking at Rowland. The look was grotesque, but it was significant, and it puzzled Rowland more than it amused him. "I suppose you 're a very brilliant young man," he went on, "very enlightened, very cultivated, quite up to the mark in the fine arts and all that sort of thing. I 'm a plain, practical old boy, content to follow an honorable profession in a free country. I did n't go off to the Old World to learn my business; no one took me by the hand; I had to grease my wheels myself, and, such as I am, I 'm a self-made man, every inch of me! Well, if our young friend is booked for fame and fortune, I don't suppose his going to Rome will stop him. But, mind you, it won't help him such a long way, either. If you have undertaken to put him through, there 's a thing or two you

the latter withdrew. But Mr. Striker's rather grim view of matters cast a momentary shadow on his companions, an

one timid conversational venture after another, and asked Rowland a number of questions about himself, his age, his family, his occupations, his tastes, his religious opinions. Rowland had an odd feeling at last that she had begun to consider him very exemplary, and that she might make, later, some perturbing discovery. He tried, therefore, t

aps you 've been told. He was killed." And the poor little lady bravely smiled, for fear of doing worse. "He was a very fine boy, but very different from Roderick. Roderick is a little strange; he has never been an easy boy. Sometimes I feel like the goose-was n't it a goose, dear?" and startled by the audacity of her comparison she appealed to Miss Garland-"the goose, or the hen, who hatch

ld but scanty justice. "No," objected Miss Garland, a

t, p

rich and so polite, and carrying

sibility of irony in that transparent gaze. Before he withdrew, Mrs. Hudson made him tell her again that Roderick's powers were extraordi

his talent itself

nt on, as he was going. "I 'm sure you 'll be the best of friends to him, but if you should ever forget him, or grow tired of him, or l

r, my de

he is everything-and that

od night, and she rose and put out her hand. She was very straightforward, but he could see that if she was too mode

although she was not shy, she blush

hich the words were uttered. "Do you ta

tain

e will not do it for me." She turned away wi

It was true, as Cecilia had said, that for an unofficious man it was a singular position. There stirred in his mind an odd feeling of annoyance with Roderick for having thus peremptorily enlisted his sympathies. As he looked up and down the long vista, and saw the clear white houses glancing here and there in the broken moonshine, he could almost have believed that the happiest lot for any man was to make the most of life in some such tranquil spot as that. Here were kindness, comfort, safety, the warning voice of duty, the perfect hush of temptation. And as Rowland looked along the arch of silvered shadow and out into

castle walls And snow

had lent him wings. He was dreaming of the inspiration of foreign lands,-of castled crags and historic landsc

ed. He tried to have some especial talk with her, but her extreme reserve forced him to content himself with such response to his rather urgent overtures as might be extracted from a keenly attentive smile. It must be confessed, however, that if the response was vague, the satisfaction was great, and that Rowland, after his second visit, kept seeing a lurking reflection of this smile in the most unexpected places. It seemed strange that she should please him so well at so slender a cost, but please him she did, prodigiously, and his pleasure had a quality altogether new to him. It made him restless, and a trifle melancholy; he walked about absently, wondering and wishing. He wondered, among other things, why fate should have condemned him to make the acquaintance of a girl whom he would make a sacrifice to know better, just as he was leaving the country for years. It seemed to him that he was turning his back on a chance of happiness-happiness of a sort of which the slenderest germ should be cultivated. He asked himself whether

for half an hour past he had said nothing. Lounging back against a vine-wreathed column and gazing idly at the stars, he kept caroling softly to himself with that indifference to ceremony for whi

a picnic. It can be as violent as you please, and it will have the m

was a meadow on the edge of a wood, with mossy rocks protruding through the grass and a little lake on the other side. It was a cloudless August day; Rowland always remembered it, and the scene, and everything that was said and done, with extraordinary distinctness. Roderick surpassed himself in friendly jollity, and at one moment, when exhilaration was at the highest, was seen in Mr. Striker's high white hat, drinking champagne from a broken tea-cup to Mr. Striker's health. Miss Striker had her father's pale blue eye; she was dressed as if she were going to sit for her photograph, and remained for a long time with Roderick on a little promontory overhanging the lake. Mrs. Hudson sat all day with a little meek, apprehensive smile. She was afraid of an "accident," though unless Miss Striker (who indeed was a little of a romp) should push Roderick into the lake, it was hard to see what accident could occur. Mrs. Hudson was as neat and crisp and uncrumpled at the end of the f

ty at any time," said Rowland. "But

of it?" she asked, with homely logic. But by this time she h

said Rowland. "If we can be friends f

er to come back to

l to say. But I go to

it so much to y

ne to be a rather idle man, and in Europe the

n, we are better than Europe," she said. To a certain point R

ork to get reconciled to America, than to

you know work

. "We all work; every one I know works. And really," she added presently,

d, smiling. "I shall sink into the earth

er usual sobriety. "It is not so very litt

d find any work at West

eflectively. "Though there are far finer woods t

es," said Rowland. "Th

spoken jestingly, she glanced at him askance, though with no visible diminutio

his head. "Abs

you do

ere, at least, if I do nothing, I shall see a great deal; and

observe ev

gh I confess," he continued, "that I often remember there are things to be seen here to w

. In fact, he had spoken from the simplest of motives. The girl beside him pleased him unspeakably, and, suspecting that her charm was essentially her own and not reflected from social circumstance, he wished to giv

ed your cousin to bear him company to Europe, he h

to Europe simpl

moment. "I think I

ence. "Do you mean to do a great

elping him is very small besid

again. "You are very generou

investment. At first, I think," he added shortly afterwards,

e why you should wish to make Roderick discon

stice. I don't t

nlike other men-those, at

what

u have no duties, no profession, n

e. And yet I maintain

, they sat down on a fallen log. Looking about him, Rowland espied a curious wild shrub, with a spotted crimson leaf; he went and plucked a spray of it and brought it to Miss Garland. He had never observed it before, but she immediately called it by its name. She expressed surprise at his not knowing it; it was extremely common. He presently brought her a specimen of another delicate plant, with a littl

acquaintances. When we walk in the woods at home-which we do so much-it seems as unnatural not to know wh

t is considered frivolous to walk in the woods and nod to the nodding flowers. Do kindly tell me a lit

isters. We don't take a very firm stand upon doctrine; we are practical, rather

d work what has

t part: doi

you call

t. But I confess I did n't like it. Otherwise, I have

ind of

ou had seen my home,

he had ever felt to defer to the complex circumstance of certain other women. "To be happy, I imagine," he c

that I have been with Mrs. Hudson, I have had a terrible amount of it. And yet I have liked it! And now that I am probably to be

that you are to rema

that is probable. Only I must not forget," she said, rising, "

ay she received this. She received it not only, as Rowland foresaw, without a shadow of coquetry, of any apparent thought of listening to it gracefully, but with a slight movement of nervous deprecation, which seemed to betray itself in the quickening of her step. Evidently, if Rowland was to take pleasure in hearing about her, it would have

and, as he dreaded her tears, he compressed a multitude of solemn promises into a silent hand-shake and took his leave. Miss Garland, she had told him, was in the back-garden with Roderick: he might go out to them. He did so, and as he drew near he heard Roderick's high-pitched voice ringing behind the shrubbery. In a moment, emerging, he fou

he is punctual. He must go! I owe you an apology for having doubted that he ought to." And

e, and the two young men always sat together upon deck late into the evening. One night, toward the last, they were at the stern of the great ship, watching her grind the solid blackness of the ocean into phosphorescent foam. They talked o

you will be so glad to know it. Besides, it 's only a question of time; three m

ship gave a great dizzying lurch. But in a moment he contrived to answer

g conscious of it. It appeared, when I spoke to her, that she had a kindness for me. So the thing was settled. I must of course make some money before we can marry. It 's rather droll, certainly, to engage one's self to a girl whom one is going to leave the next day, for years. We shall be condemned, for some time to come, to do a terrible deal of abstract thinking about each other. But I wanted her blessing on my caree

othed the sea and stilled the winds and given him a singularly sympathetic comrade, and then it had turned and delivered him a thumping blow in mid-chest

ance that he was a very happy man. Then at last, suddenly, his climax was a yawn, and he decl